I ran to help him, but another person was before me.

A tall old man, whose garb bespoke him an initiated Druze, rushed out among the horses and the dust and beat the wretched lad about the shoulders, heaping curses on that lovely head for bringing shame upon an honoured house before such company.

It was the lad's own father, the Sheykh Mustafa.

I helped to drag the old man off, and would have gone on to console the son; but just then I beheld Sheytan approaching with a broken head-rope.

I contrived to catch him and to mount without attending to the girths; and, once on horseback, I was glad to be there; for quite fifty of the tethered steeds had broken loose in the excitement, and were rushing here and there and fighting in a most alarming way.